Ted Abraham M.D is the Director of Johns Hopkin’s Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Center of Excellence www.hopkinsmedicine.org, Associate Professor of Medicine, and CEO for Perceptive Navigation a medical device start-up company that is now located on the Johns Hopkins University Montgomery County Campus in Maryland http://mcc.jhu.edu.
The company was recently awarded a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) www.sbir.gov Phase 2 grant for just over $1 million to commercialize their Vu-Cath catheter device. The funding will be used to refine the Vu-Cath catheter prototype device, test it in preclinical studies, do initial human pilot studies, and submit an application to FDA.
The Vu-Cath is an image-guided catheter that can be used in complex surgeries. The device is on a needle and can be used to do medical procedures on small areas of the body in multiple medical and surgical disciplines that includes but not limited to interventional radiology, cardiology, pulmonology, and urology.
According to Dr. Abraham, “In almost all disease conditions, access to tissue is often critical to confirming the diagnoses and delivering definitive therapy to a particular location. The current means of access are limited and fail in about a third of the attempts. The device will reliably safely, and economically access various tissues and organs without the need for expensive instrumentation or high-end facilities.”
Dr. Abraham estimates that the company is about 18 to 24 months from having a marketable device. He reports that he is expanding the team to bring in biohealth innovation entrepreneur Todd Chappell as CEO plus advisors that have extensive experience with university-based start-up companies that have been effective in taking medical products to market.